Resources
Energize Your Fin Aid Routine
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On-Demand Thought Leadership Sessions
ABCs of Gen Z
The ABC’s of Gen Z: Adapting Financial Aid Practices for Effective Outcomes
Show Description

Now is the time to start thinking about new communications for the school year to engage your Gen Z students! This generation of students grew up with cellphones in hand but rarely make phone calls. As “digital natives,” they demand that schools employ technology and online solutions to address what have traditionally been paper-driven processes. Thus, learning their language and partnering with technology can help colleges & universities adapt to these bright young minds.

Student Insights: Financial Behaviors and Issues of Inequity
Show Description

While Inceptia’s latest student survey shows disparity between what students know about money versus how they behave, it’s not always just a matter of putting knowledge into action. Issues of inequity that arise from gender, race, and home and food insecurity can also affect our students’ ability to improve financial wellbeing.

This 1-hour session will combine the best research and ideas from our previous webinars to foster understanding and share best practices regarding:

  • Aligning financial education with student misperceptions
  • Recognizing issues of inequity pertaining to race, gender, and socioeconomic status
  • Case studies for developing financial education training and resources that address these systemic barriers

Building a Better Award Letter: Providing Information that Really Helps Students and Families
Show Description

Award letters are a key to student recruitment, but today’s award letters are hard to decipher for families as they try to make decisions on the best fit for their prospective student. The format is inconsistent, terminology is confusing and bottom-line cost is too hard to figure out. What can you do when 63% of recently enrolled and prospective students note feeling lost when searching for college or financial aid options?

Handling Money Like a #GirlBoss: Empowering Women Through Financial Literacy
Show Description

In honor of Equal Pay Day, join Inceptia to learn more about what the financial education community can do to address the unique financial struggles that women face. Guest speakers will include Sophia Bera, founder of Gen Y Planning and CNBC contributor, and Jennifer Hemphill, an Accredited Financial Counselor and host of the Her Money Matters podcast. They’ll share their insights into the female financial literacy gap, challenges facing minority women, and suggestions for empowering female students to take control of their finances.

Loan Summaries: Helping Students, Helping Schools
Show Description

Loan summaries, or debt letters, have become a mandated requirement for colleges and universities across the country, with national legislation under consideration. Now is the time to learn more about how Inceptia’s Loan Summary can help you!

This webinar will breakdown what makes a successful debt letter, examine results from debt letter campaigns at three major colleges, and speak to Robert Fahy from Rutgers University regarding the adoption and implementation of Loan Summary at their campus.

Financial Education in the Age of FOMO
Show Description

How can we prepare students to say no in a world of nonstop peer pressure to spend, while technology makes it ever easier to do so?

In this one-hour webinar, we’ll explore the effects of social media on spending and saving, the drawbacks of fintech, and how we can tailor financial education programs to inform and empower students to resist.

 

Research Briefs
Gen Z
Adapting to Gen Z: A Higher Education Guide
Show Description

The Millennials changed everything. Being the first group of “digital natives,” these students ushered in the era of online forms, email advising, and student portals. As with previous generations, they forced colleges and universities to adapt, but to a greater degree and with more sweeping change than their predecessors.

Now that Gen Z has taken over as the new “traditional” college student, institutions may see them as little more than “Millennials on steroids.” However, this view would do injustice to a generation that, while also adept users of technology, diverge from Millennials in a number of areas that present both opportunities and challenges to higher education professionals.

This research brief aims to help schools better understand the unique needs of Generation Z.

Financial Aid Management Practices: The Benefits of Outsourcing Verification
Show Description

It may be an understatement to say today’s financial aid professionals are a little stressed. With staffing constraints and increased regulatory requirements, as well as serving students who expect modern, streamlined, user-friendly experiences, institutions are more challenged than ever to get everything done. It’s clear that schools need help. And outsourcing is a viable option. This brief looks at the pain points financial aid professionals are feeling today, according to the latest NASFAA data, and addresses how outsourcing can help schools provide more personalized service to students and their families while reducing the need for time-intensive technical support and regulatory compliance updates.

The brief specifically addresses the benefits of outsourcing verification and the impact of helping institutions refocus their resources. Data provided will assist those evaluating their verification strategy and provide guidance and support for schools considering a third-party servicer.

Loan Summaries: Nudging Students Toward Smart Borrowing
Show Description

As students increasingly rely on student loans to finance part or all of their college education, the need for relevant, timely information to help make informed borrowing choices has become more critical than ever. Students themselves are indicating a need for such initiatives; 48% of surveyed borrowers reported either not knowing or incorrectly estimating the amount they have borrowed. The ramifications for borrower confusion can be significant. When students do not invest in or avail themselves of existing loan counseling resources, those students, as well as schools and society at large, suffer from the effects of over borrowing, lower degree attainment, increased attrition, and student loan default.

A number of schools and states, however, have used a simple yet innovative approach to help students actively manage loan debt as they progress toward degree completion. These institutions use loan summaries, sometimes called “debt letters,” to keep students apprised of their borrowing levels and allow them to make informed choices about future repayment scenarios. This brief explores the mounting research that has emerged to support the effectiveness of this strategy and examines institutional case studies that illustrate implementation techniques and the positive implications loan summaries have on not only borrowing behavior, but also academic outcomes.

The ROI of Financial Education
Show Description

Financial education programming, while gaining in popularity among colleges and universities, still faces an uphill battle in proving its value to decision-makers and educators. At a time when outcomes are king, the very nature of financial education dictates that its results are often not immediately seen. This can make it difficult to know which strategies are effective or will gain schools the greatest return on their efforts. This brief examines the effects of financial education on student satisfaction and financial stress levels, retention and cohort default rates and lifelong financial behaviors. A simplified review of the numbers will provide a basis for calculating the return on investment for financial education programs.

The State of Student Finances 2018: Results from a Multiyear Assessment
Show Description

Since the spring of 2016, Inceptia has collected survey data from college and university students across the country in order to better understand financial behaviors. Analyzing the choices that students make about money, the steps they take to be financially well, or the ways in which they view their own competency, can provide a valuable baseline regarding their levels of financial capability. In addition, it can better inform the learning objectives and areas of focus for financial education programming, aligning our efforts to meet the needs of our students.

This brief discusses the results of data from over 60,000 respondents weighing in on a number of topics that initially self-rates their financial knowledge and then asks key questions regarding saving, protecting and preparing to determine the degree of disparity between perceived knowledge and applied behaviors.

 

Tools
FAFSA Toolkit
FAFSA Toolkit
Show Description

Timely FAFSA submission can get students on track to financially planning for college sooner. It can also reduce crunch time on your team. Encourage students to fill out the FAFSA sooner and give them a little more information with email, social, video and print tools.

School Title IV Financial Aid Calendar
Show Description

This calendar shows the Title IV data in a monthly format.

Default Prevention Task Force Activity Calendar
Show Description

This calendar shows default prevention data in a monthly format.

Great Advice for Grads E-guide
Show Description

Featuring original content and tips from the best contributors across the Financial Aid and education industry, these smart, student-oriented articles are ideal to share with not only recent and upcoming graduates, but with all students as you advise them during their student career, and prepare them for life beyond campus.

Great Advice for Parents E-guide
Show Description

Produced in partnership with NerdWallet, Great Advice for Parents is a free e-guide that offers timely advice on what students and their families should know leading up to and during the college enrollment process. Experts who have “been there, done that” weigh in with strategies to ensure both teens and parents are ready for open conversations about all things finance, helping students and parents be financially prepared for college expenses.

 

Solutions
Solutions
Financial Aid Management Solutions
Show Description

It seems like every day there’s a new process needed to help students navigate their borrower journey. Financial Aid Management Solutions from Inceptia streamline the requirements that can frustrate your students and chip away at your schedule. It’s time to get back the time you need for what matters most — helping your students.

Smart Borrowing Solutions
Show Description

Learning how to borrow smartly is not a one-and-done process. Students will face multiple crossroads throughout their education in which we ask them to make informed borrowing choices, evaluate those choices, and connect current behaviors to future goals. Will your students be ready?

Financial Education
Show Description

When it comes to finances, there’s a lot to learn — and it’s a subject that’s not always easy to master. As an industry leader and innovator, we believe it’s important to create new ways for schools to make money matters easier to understand. Sharing financial knowledge with your students through Financial Avenue, the online financial education program from Inceptia, is a way you move your students toward a wiser financial future.

Default Management Solutions
Show Description

When students understand their loans, they’re better prepared for repayment and better positioned to launch a secure financial future.

At Inceptia, we’ll help you create smart, knowledgeable borrowers who are equipped to manage debt. We provide tools to educate them throughout the borrowing lifecycle — in school, in between (their grace period) and in repayment — and offer information and resources they need to understand their loans and resolve issues.